


Seismic Shift

by andtheblueberrymuffins



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Getting Together, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 18:39:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8024755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andtheblueberrymuffins/pseuds/andtheblueberrymuffins
Summary: Shiro ends up making some decisions about his emotional attachments after the attack on the Galra. It works well enough until an unexpected situation throws him right back into close proximity to Allura.
Or, the one where Allura lifts heavy things and Shiro deals with his emotions badly.





	Seismic Shift

The truth was, all the time away from the others gave Shiro an opportunity to evaluate some important things. Like strategies for fighting the Galra. And exactly why Zarkon was so interested in the black lion. And himself.

Weeks alone in space – fighting off Galra patrols and rescuing a small colony – turned out to be very good for self-reflection. By the time Shiro made it back to the castle he’d had some realizations and not all of them related directly to military maneuvers.

The biggest one had to do with his… emotions. He’d let them control his behavior too much, more than they could afford in the middle of a war. He’d taken Voltron directly into Galra territory because of, well, because of how he felt about Allura, and staring at the blackness of space had given him plenty of time to think about that.

He’d made the decision to go after her without logic, without considering what it could have cost, without even stopping to breathe and that couldn’t be allowed. He needed to take a step back and focus on winning the war. That was what the galaxy needed. His emotions just had to wait. That was better for everyone.

Besides, he had no reason to believe Allura felt the same way. If he allowed his feelings to continue to simmer, it would only make things awkward between them. Better to shove them down. Better to make them small. Better to ignore them completely.

By the time he got back to the castle, Shiro had it all figured out.

#

Homecoming turned out to be not quite what Shiro expected. For one thing, a full eighth of the city was in rubble and Allura greeted him with her left arm in a sling and a bandage across the side of her neck. He crossed to her before he could remember all the decisions he’d made, his fingers ghosting across the bandage as he asked, “What happened? What did I miss?”

“Oh,” she waved her uninjured hand airily, but exhaustion dulled the edges of her smile. “You know. The usual.”

He frowned, his own aches forgotten. “Why haven’t you treated your injuries?”

Allura’s smile froze for just an instant, some memory passing across her eyes. “They’re not that bad, really. Coran’s were worse. And it’s just the two of use. I’m watching the ship while he recovers.”

Shiro imagined trying to manage the entire ship and alone and then wished he hadn’t. “No one else is back?”

“You’re the first one!” She said, forcing a smile again. “Come on. I’ll bring you up to speed.” And he did remember, eventually, to ease back a little out of her space, to keep his distance as she explained the battles the castle had been through while he was away. He kept his answers short and to the point to make up for his initial slips.

#

They found the other Paladins, one after another. It was easier to keep his distance from Allura once other people were aboard the castle, easier to remember to keep things strictly professional. Allura looked confused, the first few times Shiro hurried off after a conversation, but it was better that way, for everyone. He had so many people to think about. Distractions couldn’t be afforded.

#

Shiro was still avoiding Allura as much as possibly by the time Coran identified a planet where the Alteans had built an outpost, millennia ago. They’d completed the construction within the mountains of the planet, preventing the Galra Empire from locating much of their work. It had, according to Coran, been a scientific outpost, tasked with designing new technology. He seemed convinced it might hold something that could aid the war effort, so they suited up and went to the surface.

“Not very hospitable, is it?” Keith noted after they landed, frowning at the harsh sun overhead and the barren landscape around them. The world was covered in jagged gray peaks from horizon to horizon, without even a hint of greenery to break it up.

Lance opened his mouth to reply but the ground rumbled under their feet and he blurted, “Was that an earthquake? Wait, isn’t this city underground, or something?”

“It is indeed,” Allura said, holding up a scanner and frowning at the horizon. “Or at least it was. Let’s hope it remains.”

Lance grimaced. “I mean, yeah, I guess. But should we really be trying to explore an underground city while there are earthquakes going on?”

“We won’t venture into the city if there’s any sign of seismic activity,” Allura said and then hummed happily. “I think I’m picking up something from this direction.”

#

In the end, they found remnants of the city, not particularly stable after millennia of earthquakes, but apparently passable based on all the scans Pidge could throw at it. Coran found additional evidence of Altean habitation to the south, and Shiro sent Lance and Keith to investigate it, if only so he didn’t have to listen to them bickering anymore.

“Alright,” he decided, frowning at the makeshift seismograph Hunk had constructed, “well, it looks quiet enough for now. You three stay and monitor it and I’ll—”

“What?” Allura looked up from where she’d been double-checking her equipment. “No. I’m going.”

Shiro had a jolt of memory, of the last mission she’d accompanied them on, and pushed the thought away. “I don’t think—”

“The city will be full of Altean technology,” she said. “And Altean inventions. I need to go. You can come along too, if you wish.” Shiro started to protest again, but he was only letting his emotions get the better of him once more. It made logical sense for her to go. He had to let her. It was only right.

“Alright,” he agreed, “but we’re sticking together.”

“Be careful in there, you guys,” Hunk said, before they stepped through the half-collapsed opening of the city, worry written all over his face.

#

The city proved mostly to be dark, dusty, and full of dead-ends blocked off by fallen stone. They picked their way through the tunnels, over piles of rock and crushed equipment, checking in regularly with Hunk to ensure there was no evidence of further earthquakes in the vicinity. The air inside the caves was dry and stuffy, but at least they stumbled upon no bodies.

But they found nothing else of interest, either, until Shiro stopped to take a drink and considered that maybe there was nothing to be found. He rubbed his tired eyes afterwards and frowned, leaning forward to peer at a control panel that actually seemed to be in one piece.

“Hey, princess,” Shiro remembered saying, afterwards, so mundane and stupid, “I think I found something.” He’d held up his light, illuminating the dusty control panel. Allura made a pleased sound and picked her way over, across the fallen rocks strewn through the wide hall. They both moved so carefully, aware of the weight of the mountain above their heads.

Allura rubbed the dirt off of the screen with her forearm and said, “Yes, I think I can access this. Just let me…” She trailed off, squinting at the flickering screen. Shiro leaned closer, trying to angle the light to be more helpful and fighting the urge to sneeze from the dust in his nose.

“—ey, guys,” Hunk’s voice came across the radio, the earth between them adding static to the words. “Do you copy?”

Shiro took a few steps away to answer, not wanting to disturb Allura’s work. “We copy, Hunk. What’s going on?”

“Uh, well, maybe nothing, you know? But maybe something. I mean, I’ve been scanning the surrounding area, looking for more archeological sites, and, I have to say, there’s a lot of interesting—”

“What Hunk’s trying to say is that he detected seismic activity in this area,” Pidge cut in. “We think you should probably get out of there.”

Shiro shot the ceiling an uneasy look. The tunnel looked intact, but far from stable. “Hey, Allura…”

“I heard,” she replied. “You should start back. I’ll be just a minute longer. I think I found information about some kind of transfer beam….”

Shiro shook his head. “How close are you?”

Allura shrugged and half-turned. “I’m nearly—”

The ground rumbled, not beneath them, but around them, with enough force to rain a cloud of dust and stones down on Shiro’s head. Something above them groaned threatening. “Yeah, no,” Shiro said, grabbing Allura’s arm and turning towards the long march back to the surface. “We’re getting out of here now.”

“Agreed,” Allura said, punching in one last command with a triumphant look. “I reached the information, anyway. I’ve sent it to Coran.” She spoke while striding forward, ducking under a low-hanging corner. The earth rumbled again, shaking with more force.

“Uh,” Pidge said, her voice crackling over the communicator. “Not to panic anyone, but—” her voice cut off into static.

“Pidge?” Shiro demanded, stumbling sideways as the path jumped underfoot. He tried again, “Pidge, we missed—”

And then the world went mad. The sound was deafening and the ground roiled around, above and beneath them. Something crashed behind them and Shiro swore even as Allura yanked him forward, pulling him along. For an instant, as they ran through the falling dust and the heaving tunnel, he really thought they were going to make it.

That was before the tunnel collapsed in front of them.

Shiro barely managed to pull Allura back from the falling rocks. She cried out, her voice blending with his, as a rush of dust blew back into their faces. He stumbled back a step as the world continued to shake and the ground gave beneath his foot, suddenly. He dropped, shouting, scrambling at the stone and managing to arrest his fall right before the rocks moved again, shifting over and crushing his legs in a sudden, brutal wash of pain.

He screamed and Allura yelled his name. He jerked his head up, looking for her through his stinging vision, and managed only to watch the ceiling above them give with a tremendous cracking roar.

Shiro stared up at it, disbelieving, left with nothing to do but wait for death. He barely heard Allura call his name again, and he wanted to yell at her to run, though she had nowhere to go. His heart froze in his chest and he threw his arms over his head, for whatever minimal protection that offered, waiting to be buried alive.

Rocks crashed in an endless cacophony. Some fell on his back and shoulders, but none crushed him.

His eyes flew open and he looked up, shocked to still be alive, to find utter darkness around him. Panic tightened around his ribs and he shouted, “Allura? Allura, are you—”

“I’m right here,” she gasped, close by—above him. She stood above him, over his chest. Her voice sounded thin with strain. “You don’t have to shout.”

“What?” Shiro asked, moving his hand across the rocky ground, looking for his light—he’d dropped it in the quake. “What’s….?” He closed his fingers around the light and switched it on, gaping when it finally flickered to life. 

Allura stood over him, her arms extended upwards, holding back the rocks. She must have jumped between him and the collapsing ceiling. Her arms and legs already trembled from the strain. He couldn’t see her face. The light didn’t reach that far. She’d managed to protect them from crushing death, but they were left with a tiny amount of space, the rest of the world full of rock.

“Oh, no,” Shiro panted.

“My thoughts,” Allura panted, “exactly.”

#

Their situation only got worse. Shiro’s communicator no longer worked, most likely damaged in the collapse. Allura’s might have functioned, but Shiro couldn’t reach it and Allura couldn’t spare a hand.

“The others know where we are,” Shiro said, the cold of the rock seeping up through his suit into his skin, dust caking in the back of his throat. “And they knew about the tremor. They’ll find us.”

Allura’s voice cracked when she said, “Of course.” He could feel her ankle, trembling where it pressed against his side. She was holding up a mountain and somehow, even in their present situation, he couldn’t get over that. No more than he could move past the fact that she’d saved him. Again.

The thought made him lightheaded. Or… He tried to take a deep breath and the hint of dizziness in the back of his skull didn’t diminish. “I think,” he said, picking the words carefully, “that we might be low on oxygen.”

Allura grunted, “Of course. Can you—can you get your legs free?”

Shiro closed his eyes, doing his best to ignore the pain. He said only, “No,” because she didn’t need to know that even if he could have it would do them no good. Something had snapped, ugly and loud, when the rocks came down. His entire left leg was hot with blood.

She made a sound almost like a sob.

“They’ll find us,” Shiro told her, curling a hand around her calf in a futile little gesture of comfort, closer to her now than he’d allowed himself to be in weeks.

#

But no one found them. No matter how hard Shiro strained his ears for the sound of a lion moving around above them, digging them out, he heard nothing. No matter how hard he tried to feel additional vibrations through the ground, he felt nothing. He sipped at the air, trying to leave as much oxygen for Allura as possible. She needed it more than he did.

Eventually his light began flickering, offering only a moment of warning before it failed completely.

Something hot and wet dripped down on Shiro’s neck, and he couldn’t tell in the darkness if it was tears or sweat.

“They’re going to find us,” he promised.

#

“Shiro,” Allura said, eventually, into the dark. Her voice seemed shockingly loud though he knew, intellectually, that it was barely a trembling whisper.

“What? I’m here, princess,” he assured her, squeezing her leg again. The shaking in her muscles had grown worse.

“I—” she gasped. “I can’t.” And he felt her knee give a heartbeat before the weight of the mountain drove her down onto her knees, fully straddling his chest. Her elbows gave in the same instant, but she curled over, and caught the rocks on her shoulders, taking the impact with a brutal little sound. Shiro felt her thumbs against either side of his head and her breath panting against his face when she wheezed, “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, Allura.” He reached up and managed to touch her face—she’d fallen far enough for that. “This isn’t your fault.”

“Yes,” she panted. “My fault. Should have—”

He brushed his fingers down her cheek, finding her mouth and pressing his thumb over her lips to quiet her. “No.” He felt so dizzy. “No.” He wouldn’t have her dying thinking this was her responsibility. She needed to know he’d never blame her. She nodded against his hand and then leaned her head against it, heavily. He supported the weight. It was the least he could do.

They breathed in the same sour air, there in the dark, and he decided that, really, there were other things he needed her to know before they died. He’d been so stupid, so stupid with all his decisions since he came back. What had they earned him? What would they ever have earned him? He felt dizzy with regret.

“Allura?” he whispered, as though maybe she’d disappeared into the darkness. She made only a pained sound in reply, the weight of the world pressing down on her back. He stroked her cheek and wished he could see her face. “I need to tell you something.”

“What?”

“I….” He swallowed hard and licked his dry lips. “I should have told you before. But I thought—I thought I needed to focus on defeating the Galra, I thought—”

“Sh,” she hissed. “The air. Have to save. The air.”

Her arms shook so badly beside his head that they’d give any second. The air was the least of their worries. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, wishing there was some way he could get close enough to kiss her, just once, before the earth crushed them both. It seemed perverse, to be so close to her finally and unable to even do that. “Listen. You—God, you’re so beautiful.”

She sucked in a breath above him.

“And brave and smart and I, I should have told you, I—”

Allura’s arms gave, though she somehow caught herself on her elbows, her chest nearly pressed against his, and, oh, suddenly close enough to kiss. His nose brushed hers in the dark. “I can’t hold it,” she warned, her bottom lip dragging across his.

“It’s alright,” he told her and threaded his fingers back into her hair, as best he could. “I love you.” He lifted his head up off the ground enough to kiss her mouth, feeling her gasp and thinking it wouldn’t be such a terrible way to die, really, it could have been so much worse.

And then light swallowed them.

#

“We’ve got them! We’ve got them! We’ve—oh” Coran’s voice cut off abruptly, so sudden and unexpected that Shiro froze, so blinded and disoriented by the sudden light that he didn’t realize where he was at first. But then Allura sighed against his mouth and collapsed, and awareness came back all in a rush.

The castle. They were back in the castle. In the middle of the bridge. On the floor. Allura lay sprawled across his chest, limp as a ragdoll, and Shiro tried to move her only to cry out when his left leg exploded into agony.

“They both need medical assistance!” Coran yelled, from somewhere across the room. “Help me move them, come on!”

Someone tried to pull Allura away, a moment later, and Shiro instinctively tightened his grip, scowling up into a face that resolved into Hunk.

“Uh, hey man,” Hunk said. “Could you, um, just let go? Please?” Shiro released her with a hot rush of embarrassment, thunking his head back onto the floor.

He repeated the motion when Coran leaned into view and said, “Take her down to the medical bay. I’ll bring Shiro.” 

Really, it made sense that Coran was every bit as strong as Allura, but it still felt strange to be scooped up, even though Coran was very careful of his leg.

#

In the end, Shiro ended up spending more time in the med tanks than Allura, after all, he’d pulverized the bone in his thigh and most of her damage had been to muscles and tendons. He remained grateful, once they finally released him, that there was no way to talk to anyone while you were being treated. Coran’s sharp-eyed look when Shiro snagged his clothes and fled the bay was bad enough.

The rest of the Paladins swarmed around him the day of his release, Hunk and Lance taking turns exalting in the fact that Allura had in fact, held up a freaking mountain, man, while Pidge tried to explain how they’d been able to adapt some of the technology Allura and Shiro found in the complex into a beaming ray. The very same beaming ray that they used to rescue Shiro and Allura from certain crushing doom, in fact. Keith mostly hung back, quiet and tense, and reaching out every so often to ensure that Shiro hadn’t actually died.

Shiro caught sight of Allura a dozen times, watching them from doorways or hurrying past looking busy. A few times he thought she intended to approach, but she always turned away at the last instant.

He concentrated on enjoying breathing and not succumbing to dread about the fallout from deathbed confessions you accidentally lived through.

#

Shiro ended up roaming the castle that night, not ready to lay still in the dark again, just quite yet. He happened upon Allura – truly, he hadn’t been trying to track her down, much – in one of the large conservatory areas in the castle. She sat on a bench surrounded by wild greenery. None of them had much time to devote to gardening. Overhead, stars swirled on the other side of the castle. The large moon that orbited the planet with them filled half the sky. Allura stared up at it, her skirts folded around her legs and her hair falling down her back.

Shiro leaned against the doorframe and stared at her, putting off the conversation they needed to have, just for a moment.

“Are you going to come sit down?” Allura asked, only a second later, without looking over. “Or are you just going to stand there?”

“I hadn’t decided,” Shiro admitted, making his way over to the bench and sitting down, after a long moment.

Allura huffed a laugh at him. “Coran says you’re recovered.”

“I am.” He swallowed. “Thanks to you.”

“You would have done the same for me,” Allura said, easily, and then flushed across her cheeks, blinking and looking to the side. “I mean… I don’t mean because of— I understand that we were both very low on oxygen and I don’t mean to imply that—”

“No, you’re right. I would have.” He took a deep breath, leaned over, and braced his elbows on his knees, rubbing at the back of his neck. Her attempt to give him an out touched him, but… But maybe he’d been looking for outs for too long. “I meant what I said. I wasn’t delirious. I… I thought, for a long time, that I could ignore it. Until after all of this was over. But I couldn’t. So.” He shrugged and stared hard at his hands. “Now you know. I love you.” It felt good, to say it under the star light, though his stomach still knotted tight with tension. “And I don’t expect you to—”

Allura grabbed both sides of his face and turned his head, her expression wide open and lovely as she searched his eyes. She said, quietly, “You must realize I love you, as well.”

He hadn’t. He hadn’t at all. The words hit him hard and he gaped at her, trying to process them as she stumbled on, “I thought you knew. I thought…” She titled her chin up, “You came back and you were so, well, professional. I thought you were trying to, what was the term Keith used the other day, oh, yes, ‘let me down easy.’”

“No,” Shiro shifted a little closer, drawn in by the starflare of her eyes, the softness of her voice. “Never that.”

“Well.” Allura’s eyes widened and she licked her bottom lip. He wondered if she realized. “That’s excellent, then.” She slid one of her hands further back, her fingers stroking across the back of his neck and sending hot shivers down his spine. “I’d like you to kiss me again,” she said, quietly. “Properly.”

“Oh, princess,” he murmured, hoarse at the request, and leaned closer.

And maybe he shouldn’t have. Maybe it would divide his focus too much. Maybe it was a mistake. But it didn’t feel like it, when she closed the last of the distance between them and he gave her what she asked for.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway, so, I have a [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/andtheblueberrymuffin) that you can check out. I post ficlets there and other stuff. Largely Voltron at the moment but I'm interested in lots of stuff, so.


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